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Wilhelm 1
22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888 Wilhelm I (Wilhelm Frederick Louis, German: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig), of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia (2 January 1861 – 9 March 1888) and the first German Emperor (18 January 1871 – 9 March 1888). Under the leadership of Wilhelm and his Minister President Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire. The future king and emperor was born Wilhelm Frederick Louis of Prussia (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig von Preußen) in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin on 22 March 1797. As the second son of King Frederick Wilhelm III and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Wilhelm was not expected to ascend to the throne. He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Delbrück (de), who was also in charge of the education of Wilhelm's brother, the Crownprince Frederick Wilhelm. At age 10, his father appointed him an officer in the Prussian army. Wilhelm served in the army from 1814 onward. Like his father he fought against Napoleon I of France during the part of the Napoleonic Wars known in Germany as the Befreiungskriege (otherwise known as the War of the Sixth Coalition), and was reportedly a very brave soldier. He was made a Captain (Hauptmann) and won the Iron Cross for his actions at Bar-sur-Aube. The war and the fight against France left a lifelong impression on him, in particular causing a long-standing antipathy against the French. In 1815, Wilhelm was promoted to Major and commanded a battalion of the 1. Garderegiment. He fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Ligny and Waterloo. He also became an excellent diplomat by engaging in diplomatic missions after 1815. In 1816, Wilhelm became the commander of the Stettiner Gardelandwehrbataillon and in 1818 was promoted to Generalmajor. The next year, Wilhelm was appointed inspector of the VII. and VIII. Army Corps. This made him a spokesman of the Prussian Army within the House of Hohenzollern. He argued in favour of a strong, well-trained and well-equipped army. In 1820, Wilhelm became commander of the 1. Gardedivision and in 1825 was promoted to commanding general of the III. Army Corps. In 1829, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach after Princess Elisa Radziwill, whom he had been attracted to, was deemed an inappropriate match by his father. Wilhelm had been forced to abandon the relationship with Elisa in 1826. Augusta was the daughter of Grand Duke Karl Friedrich von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. Their marriage was outwardly stable, but not a very happy one. In 1840 his older brother became King of Prussia. Since he had no children, Wilhelm was first in line to succeed him to the throne and thus was given the title Prinz von Preußen. Against his convictions but out of loyalty towards his brother, in 1847 Wilhelm signed the bill setting up a Prussian parliament (Vereinigter Landtag) and took a seat in the upper chamber, the Herrenhaus. During the Revolutions of 1848, Wilhelm successfully crushed a revolt in Berlin that was aimed at his elder brother, King Frederick Wilhelm IV. The use of cannon made him unpopular at the time and earned him the nickname Kartätschenprinz (Prince of Grapeshot). Indeed he had to flee to England for a while, disguised as a merchant. He returned and helped to put down an uprising in Baden, where he commanded the Prussian army. In October 1849, he became governor-general of Rhineland and Westfalia, with a seat at the Kurfürstliches Schloss in Koblenz. During their time at Koblenz, Wilhelm and his wife entertained liberal scholars like the historian Maximilian Duncker (de) or August von Bethmann-Hollweg and Clemens Theodor Perthes (de). Wilhelm's opposition to liberal ideas gradually softened. In 1854, the prince was raised to the rank of a field-marshal and made governor of the federal fortress of Mainz. In 1857 Frederick Wilhelm IV suffered a stroke and became mentally disabled for the rest of his life. In January 1858, Wilhelm became Prince Regent for his brother, initially only temporarily but after October on a permanent basis. Against the advice of his brother, Wilhelm swore an oath of office on the Prussian constitution and promised to preserve it "solid and inviolable". Wilhelm appointed a liberal, Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as Minister President and thus initiated what became known as the "New Era" in Prussia, although there were conflicts between Wilhelm and the liberal majority in the Landtag on matters of reforming the armed forces. On 2 January 1861 Frederick Wilhelm died and Wilhelm ascended the throne as Wilhelm I of Prussia. In July a student from Leipzig tried to assassinate Wilhelm, but he was only lightly injured. Like Frederick I of Prussia, Wilhelm travelled to Königsberg and there crowned himself at the Schlosskirche. Wilhelm chose the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, 18 October, for this event, which was the first Prussian crowning ceremony since 1701 and the only crowning of a German king in the 19th century. Wilhelm refused to comply with his brother's wish, expressed in Frederick Wilhelm's last will, that he should abrogate the constitution. Wilhelm inherited a conflict between Frederick Wilhelm and the liberal Landtag. He was considered a politically neutral person as he intervened less in politics than his brother. In 1862 the Landtag refused an increase in the military budget that was required to pay for the already implemented reform of the army. This involved raising the peace time army from 150,000 to 200,00 men and boost the annual number of new recruits from 40,000 to 63,000. However, the truly controversial part was the plan to keep the length of military service (raised in 1856 from two years) at three years. When his request, backed by his Minister of War Albrecht von Roon was refused, Wilhelm first considered to resign but his son, the Crown Prince, advised strongly against it. Then, on the advice of Roon, Wilhelm appointed Otto von Bismarck to the office of Minister President in order to force through the proposals. According to the Prussian constitution, the Minister President was responsible solely to the king, not to the Landtag. Bismarck liked to see his working relationship with Wilhelm as that of a vassal to his feudal superior. Nonetheless, it was Bismarck who effectively directed the politics, domestic as well as foreign; on several occasions he gained Wilhelm's assent by threatening to resign. During his reign Wilhelm was the commander-in-chief of the Prussian forces in the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. After the latter was won by Prussia, Wilhelm wanted to march on to Vienna and annex Austria but Bismarck and Crownprince Frederick talked him out of it. Bismarck wanted to end the war, so as to allow Prussia to ally with Austria if it needed to at a later date. During a heated discussion Bismarck threatened to commit suicide if Wilhelm continued to Vienna; Bismarck got his way. In 1867, the North German Confederation was created and Wilhelm became its president. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm was in command of all the German forces at the crucial Battle of Sedan. During the Franco-Prussian War, on 18 January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace, Wilhelm was proclaimed German Emperor. The title "German Emperor" was carefully chosen by Bismarck after discussion until (and after) the day of the proclamation. Wilhelm accepted this title grudgingly as he would have preferred "Emperor of Germany" which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and would also have signalled a claim to lands outside his realm (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc.). The title "Emperor of the Germans", as proposed in 1848, was ruled out as he considered himself chosen "by the grace of God", not by the people as in a republic. Wilhelm also viewed his Kingship of Prussia as much more important than the title of German Emperor. He complained to his son, Crown Prince Frederick, about having to exchange "the radiant Prussian crown for this filth-crown". By this ceremony, the North German Confederation was transformed into the German Empire ("Kaiserreich", 1871–1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares – first among equals) of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, Mecklenburg, Hesse, as well as other principalities, duchies and the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen). Wilhelm I arbitrated a boundary dispute between Great Britain and the United States, deciding in favor of the U.S. and placing the San Juan Islands of Washington State within U.S. national territory, thus ending the 12-year Pig War between British and U.S. forces on San Juan Island, on October 21, 1872. In his memoirs, Bismarck describes Wilhelm as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by "female influences". This was a reference to Wilhelm's wife, who had been educated by, among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was intellectually superior to her husband. She was also at times very outspoken in her opposition to official policies as she was a liberal in the classical sense. Wilhelm, however, had long been strongly opposed to liberal ideas. Wilhelm left the task of governing mostly to his chancellor and limited himself to representation, embodying the dignity of the state and approving Bismarck's policies. On 11 May 1878, a plumber named Emil Max Hödel failed in an assassination attempt on Wilhelm in Berlin. Hödel used a revolver to shoot at the Emperor, while the 81-year-old and his daughter, Princess Louise of Prussia, paraded in their carriage Unter den Linden. When the bullet missed, Hödel ran across the street and fired another round which also missed. In the commotion one of the individuals who tried to apprehend Hödel suffered severe internal injuries and died two days later. The State convicted Hödel after a photographer who took the radical’s picture days before the assassination attempt testified that after he took the picture Hödel said it would sell thousands once a certain piece of information was hashed through the world. Hödel was beheaded on 16 August 1878. A second attempt to assassinate Wilhelm I was made on 2 June 1878 by Dr. Karl Nobiling. As the Emperor drove past in an open carriage, the assassin fired two shots from a shotgun at him from the window of a house off the Unter den Linden. Wilhelm was severely wounded and was rushed back to the palace and Nobiling shot himself in an attempt to commit suicide. While Wilhelm survived this attack, the assassin died from his self-inflicted wound three months later. Despite the fact that Hödel had been expelled from the Social Democratic Party, his actions were used as a pretext by Bismarck to ban the party through the "Anti-Socialist Law" in October 1878. To do this, Bismarck partnered with Ludwig Bamberger, a Liberal, who had written on the subject of Socialism, "If I don’t want any chickens, then I must smash the eggs." No one in the Social-Democratic Party even knew of Karl Nobiling, but that is not to say that he was not politically motivated. These attempts on Wilhelm's life thus became the pretext for the institution of the Anti-Socialist Law, which was introduced by Bismarck’s government with the support of a majority in the Reichstag on 18 October 1878, for the purpose of fighting the socialist and working-class movement. The laws deprived the Social Democratic Party of Germany of its legal status; they prohibited all organizations, workers’ mass organizations and the socialist and workers’ press, decreed confiscation of socialist literature, and subjected Social-Democrats to reprisals. The laws were extended every 2–3 years. Despite this policy of reprisals the Social Democratic Party increased its influence among the masses. Under pressure of the mass working-class movement the laws were repealed on 1 October 1890. In August 1878, Russian Tsar Alexander II, Wilhelm's nephew, wrote a letter (known as Ohrfeigenbrief) to him complaining about the treatment Russian interests had received at the Congress of Berlin. In response, Wilhelm, his son the crownprince and his wife Augusta travelled to Russia (against the advice of Bismarck) to mend fences in face-to-face talks. However, by once again threatening to resign, Bismarck overcame the opposition of Wilhelm to a closer alliance with Austria. In October, Wilhelm agreed to the Zweibund between Germany and Austria-Hungary which was directed against Russia. Another assassination attempt failed on 18 September 1883 when Wilhelm unveiled the Niederwalddenkmal in Rüdesheim. A group of anarchists had prepared an attack using dynamite which failed due to the wet weather. Despite the assassination attempts and Wilhelm's unpopular role in the 1848 uprising, he and his wife were very popular, especially in their later years. Many people considered them the personification of "the old Prussia" and liked their austere and simple lifestyle. Wilhelm died on 9 March 1888 in Berlin after a short illness. He was buried on 16 March at the Mausoleum at Park Charlottenburg. To honour him a large number of memorials/statues were erected all over the country over the following years. The best-known among them are the Kyffhäuser monument (1890-96) in Thuringia, the monument at Porta Westfalica (1896) and the mounted statue of Wilhelm at the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz (1897). The statue next to the Stadtschloss, Berlin (1898) was melted down by the communist rulers of East-Berlin in 1950.